1943, Mission District, Valencia Gardens
15th St. bet. Guerrero and Valencia Sts., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; Harry Thomsen sculpture by Beniamino Bufano
Valencia Gardens was designed by William Wurster following guidelines written in Washington, D.C., and influenced by the work of his wife, Catherine Bauer. Wurster drew on three traditions for his design: Scandinavian cooperative housing, Mexican courtyards, and the work of Ernest May, an architect and planner close to the Bauhaus. The two-story Valencia Gardens was built on a human scale that emphasized each individual family unit, a marked contrast to the huge ugly blocks of housing projects that would go up in major cities after World War II. The courtyard, which opens onto Fifthteenth Street, features sculpture by Beniamino Bufano, a project funded by the Federal Arts Project (Wiley 2000: 309).
One of the landmarks of public housing design, this has only recently begun to show signs of vandalism and neglect (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 105, 535).
Valencia Gardens succumbed to vandalism and neglect and was demolished in 2004 (R. L. Mix, 12.29.2005).
1945, Pacific Heights, House
250 Locust St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
From Modernistic formality to Modern Bay Region informality (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 211-12).
The white brick urbanity of this house contrasts with the 1954 design by these architects at 250 Locust St. (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 40).
1948, North Bay, House
42 San Carlos Ave., Sausalito
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
Across the street [from Julia Morgan's Sausalito Woman's Club (1913)] this quietly inconspicuous house makes an harmonious neighbor (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 209).
1949, Peninsula, Shuman House
607 Mountain Home Rd. at SE cor. Winding Wy., Portola
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; Lawrence Halprin, landscape architecture
Elegant, rambling, late-Wurster style ranch house in unusual light colored oiled vertical wood siding (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 150).
1949, Peninsula, house in Woodside
Woodside
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons, Lawrence Halprin, Landscape architect
[Thomas] Church is often described as looking like a real gardener in khakis and an old felt hat with pruning shears hanging from his belt. Whether or not his appearance was calculated, it had a marvelous effect on clients in all categories from homeowners to the boards of directors of corportions and institutions. From Church's office came a group of landscape architects, among them Robert Roysten, Douglas Baylis, and Lawrence Halprin, who profoundly influenced the profession. When Halprin opened his office in 1949, his first commission was a garden for his wife's parents in Woodside; Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons were architects for the house. The site plan shows the two wings of the house, one containing bedrooms and the other service areas, set at a wide angle and hinged in the middle by the entryway. On the entry side the largely blank walls give the effect of a wall defining the public area. On the other side large areas of glass open the house to the garden.
Here Halprin preserved an open meadow as meadow rather than mowed lawn, which both contributed to the modified rusticity of the house design and kept down maintenance, a major client requirement. In the spring the meadow is green, studded with yellow daffodils; in the summer it is golden brown. Garden areas bordering the house interweave paving, rammed earth paths, and planted areas around the spreading oaks, making a total composition that is a deft fusion of the manmade and the natural (Woodbridge 1988: 176-80).
1951, Russian Hill, Walters "ferryboat" house
2745 Larkin St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
This large town house is handled with a splendid disregard for formality. Its casual exterior covers an interior of great dignity and spatial interest, organized to take maximum advantage of the view (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 135; Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 53).
A comparison of [Joseph] Esherick's second townhouse of 1951 with one of the same year by W. B. and E. illustrates the difference. Although both houses have splendid views of the Bay, the latter is a thorough response to the site; its most important statement is the dramatic orientation of the living areas to the view. The de-emphasis of the entrance and the closing of the basement story create an appropriate nautical image; the house is often called the "ferryboat" house. By contrast the Esherick house [3700 Washington Street] deals equally and formally with the Bay view and the position of the house on a corner lot (Woodbridge 1988: 184, 189, 190).
1951, Northern California, Heller Lake Tahoe retreat
Lake Tahoe
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
A 1951 Lake Tahoe retreat, the Heller house, contains a magnificent room without a name. Bold, massive forms and materials combine with multiple-use spaces to develop the most striking example of this Wurster concept. Living, dining, working, and sleeping all take place in this setting, expanding what had initially begun in the kitchen cave or the individual room into a beautiful and robust "nameless" place for activities at the water's edge (Woodbridge 1988: 148, 149).
1952, Castro, House
4015 21 St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
A fine example of the kind of informal, yet clearly defined, house designed in many variations by this firm from the 1940s through the 1950s (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 185).
1952 [c.1925], Peninsula, House
877 Chiltern Rd., Hillsborough
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons, remodeling
Originally, and still, mostly, an eclectic house of the 1920s (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 132).
1954, Northern California, Salz house
San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
Another "garden house" in the city is the Salz residence. Here the characteristic San Francisco bay windows become demi-rooms capturing sunlight and providing a chance to walk out into the gardens (Woodbridge 1988: 148, 151).
